Memories!

1) At my last haircut, the (Japanese) (female) owner cut my hair. She was telling me how the previous weekend was her business's 6th anniversary, so I asked her how she got started in the business. Way back in Japan, she was already a stylist, and then got married and moved here, and after raising her kids went back to work as a stylist, and then opened up her own business...

It turns out, too, that her family is a family of independent businesspeople. In Japan, farmers only really use perfectly-shaped cucumbers and would throw out the funky ones, so her grandfather got them, cut them up, and salted them for a year, then sold them to pickle companies to put in vinegar and season, and that's now her family business.


Also, her dad died at 42, so her mom, who was very traditional and still thinks men are superior and only had a high school education, took over the business at 36, in addition to having to care for 3 children and her aging mother-in-law. She was very honest, so people trusted her and she was successful at business, and now one of her sons runs the company - the 3rd generation in the family to do so.

2) The (older) (black) (male) attendant was telling me that back in the 1950s, this city's Chinatown was small, and there were a lot of houses, which was typical for many neighborhoods, especially those close the railroad tracks. He also talked about how much people canned and baked bread, though they don't do that anymore.

"Soup, whatever," he was like, "You could make it, they would can it."